No one has advocated abortion to "decrease the surplus population" and Ayn Rand did not arbitrarily call children "something other than human" as an excuse to murder anyone. The fetus, embryo, zygote, cells, eggs and sperm are fundamentally different in what they are and how they function to live than a child who has been born.

Ayn Rand's moral philosophy explains the nature and source of rights comprehensively. See "Man's Rights" in The Virtue of Selfishness and in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. The concept of 'rights' is a moral concept that applies to human persons as moral beings, not anything with the potential to become human or a lower animal. The concept of rights does not apply to the unborn -- whether early cells or a fetus. Rights are not mystical properties "intrinsic" to life, as assigned by religion demanding "sanctity" with no regard for identifying and validating them objectively.

The right of abortion was summarized on this page here: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

Explaining the right of abortion and rejecting the "militant, angry, combative" anti-abortionist smears -- of "eugenics", "murder", "infanticide", "taking a human life", "kill children", "truth blurred by the lack-of-accountability murder campaign", "condoning drunk driving", "reduce the surplus population", "death shops", "overtly hysterical" (ironically), "myopic angst", "vitriolic", "irresponsible", "whim", "magic", "sinister", "unaccountable", "hogwash", "rant", "ass", "hijacking", "accusatory", "zealotry", "temper tantrum", "personal crusade", "prophetess" and "canonize the diety [meaning Ayn Rand]", "beating people over the head" -- and demands that supporters of Ayn Rand leave this Ayn Rand forum for rejecting faith in religion should not be "terrifying" to those seeking "rational discussion". Militant religion is not the basis of rational discussion.

If I am unable to see the end result, then it is not worth waiting for, for my means of production requires that my customers have to expect a decade of production just to break even and two decades before the project is considered worthwhile to my customers. A man like me cannot exist in a world that is this bad, let alone worse. You are correct in saying that I can expect anything better. This is why John Galt shrugged.

We are not "taking a human life", "murdering", etc. etc. Those are all smears and misrepresentations from the anti-abortion campaign.

False.

I know what "swell foop" means and and didn't say to wait to fight the battle another day or that it has no objectives. The fight is continuous and the objective is understanding of a philosophy of reason, egoism and capitalism so that a proper government can be implemented. That is a long process but with benefits along the way. There are constant political battles that must be fought now and continuously as best possible regardless of significant improvement in the culture. It's unlikely that you would personally see the end result, but civilization would, and you would be able to live in the meantime without the complete devastation that will occur otherwise. But that is the only choice, you can't say it isn't worth the wait and expect anything better.

Not wanting to pay for someone else's abortion and the lower cost of birth control today does not justify denying others their right of abortion. The right of abortion is not equivalent to welfare. They are different concepts and everyone knows it.

My, you are a (pardon the expression) hard-ass. I admire that. We've got a very long way to go, and if the result wasn't so damn important, it could be a fun ride.

1) The term is "fell swoop", not "swell foop".
2) Regarding the intellectual war, there must be achievable objectives to be defined and not only reached, but eclipsed.
3) You are correct in saying that many or most will not be convinced.
4) Your middle paragraph effectively says that we must be willing to wait to fight the battle on another day. This is reasonable. It was the strategy of George Washington and Sam Houston.
5) For the record, I was one of the handful of Tea Party organizers in my county. We had a very active Tea Party until the party enforcer of our then Republican turned independent eventually turned Democrat governor did one of the dirtiest things in politics I have ever seen.

"Brevard County (Tea Party) Republican Committee Chairman Jason Steele is still on probation for opposing Jim Greer's efforts to get statewide and national endorsements for Gov. Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Mel Martinez. A state GOP panel in September found Steele guilty of violating the loyalty oath, placed him on probation and allowed him to continue as chair of the local executive committee", but denied him standing on the state committee. Charlie Crist, it may be remembered, was a big reason why John McCain was the GOP nominee. McCain was dead in the water until Crist helped McCain win the nomination in Florida.

http://archive.floridatoday.com/conte...

I wasn't really a Rubio supporter, although at the time, he hadn't said anything to make me reject him (such as his more recent immigration stance or his recent hawkishness). I knew who Crist was. He was RINO personified.

After this whole debacle with the "loyalty oath" to someone who was a RINO turned more liberal than even McCain was the final clincher for me ever supporting the Republican Party again. I may support an individual candidate such as Rand Paul, but never the party.

After the aforementioned incident, a very active Tea Party (regularly 2000 attendees in a community of 100,000 at events) died a quick death.

I am no longer optimistic. If the Tea Party died in a county that is as aligned with its values as my county is, then the Tea Party is definitely dead. When combined with several other things, it was clearly time to shrug.

6) If we are going to wait to fight the battle another day as discussed in 4), how long are we talking about? Even if I'm not dead by that point, I'm probably going to be past the age at which I can truly reap the benefits of waiting. Given Objectivist ethics, such a wait is not worthwhile if it is that long.

Several years ago, I suggested to my local Tea Party chapter that they should make a short list of promises / conditions that a candidate guaranteed to uphold. Failure to uphold would automatically mean a breach of contract and a predetermined financial penalty to come out of the now elected official's personal coffers. They looked at me as if I was from Mars.

Unfortunately in this case it's Ben Carson, who is generally so superior a human being to any of the Clintons that I hesitate to put them both in the same sentence.

"You" refers to your posts, which are increasingly militant and personally insulting in your attacks on Ayn Rand and those who support her position. The use of the word "you" is not a personal attack. You are responsible for what you write. Rejecting hostile, personal attacks inappropriate to this forum is not a "personal attack", and neither is morally and politically rejecting the militant anti-abortion crusade.

"Carons", i.e., Ben Carson, was interviewed on his opposition to abortion and scientific use of fetal tissue and stem cells. That is the topic. You introduced it when you linked to the interview. The topic was not changed to a "favorite rant".

Your calling him "level headed and intelligent" does not lock in a false premise that his religious-based views are correct. His medical expertise does not justify his religion or his premise that his religion should limit the use and pursuit of scientific knowledge in this realm. Citing a doctor with an otherwise admirable career and character does not in the name of "any issue related to health" refute Ayn Rand's support of the right of abortion and scientific inquiry opposed by religion.

When I have to pay for that right for someone else, it does makes a difference. If I have to pay for that abortion or to bear the cost of that person and her child being on welfare for many years, the cost of birth control makes a tremendous difference. At this point, the cost of contraception and "morning after" pills should make this argument a moot point. Anyone irresponsible enough to both not take contraception and not take the morning after pill is now, because of Zerocare, forcing me to be "my sister's keeper". Such a person needs to feel the full consequences of their irresponsibility. Because they haven't for 50 years of the "Great Society", we now have a society not worth living in. We have bred a generation of moochers. Abortion is a right only if it encumbers no one else, which it has done in every country that it has been practiced in.

"One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months." http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/abo... If Ayn Rand herself allowed that "one may argue" about abortions past the first trimester, is it unequivocally the case that she would have allowed all abortions, even late term abortions of viable fetuses/children? When today's medical advances make it possible to save the lives of smaller and smaller pre-term infants, is it not truly a slippery slope to declare that whether a 2-month or 3-month [or even younger] premature infant is, or is not, a human being that will be accorded a right to life depends not on the child him/herself but on the opinions... desires... whims of the premie's parents? Above all, is it reasonable to state that two couples, pregnant with a child at the exact state of prematurity, can enter the same hospital, and one couple can expect the full support of doctors to terminate their child's life, and one couple can expect the full support of doctors to deliver their child and deal with all of the health challenges attendant upon such a premature birth -- and that both couples are within their rights, the one to kill the premie, the other to save it?

I am not religious; I bow my head before no superior being; I hold no philosophical positions derived from mandates on high -- and that includes mandates from Ayn Rand. I have borne two children, and I was then, and remain now, convinced that they had a right to my constant care and support in bringing them into the world and supporting them until they were self-sustaining individuals. Once I engaged in conduct, the possible and even likely result of which was pregnancy, I committed myself to the care and protection of the humans whom my conduct might well create [even at a stage in their development that many would term "pre-human"]. I would have used all of my strength and all of my intelligence to defeat any person who would have threatened their existence, whether 7 days or 7 months prior to their birth. I would no more disavow my responsibility in that arena than I would proclaim that I can drive through any red light and hold no responsibility for the ensuing injury or death that might result from my conduct.

What if? is a powerful tool. It can shed light on questions like this, and lead us to question what we formerly thought were unassailable certainties. What if we develop a reliable means of measuring consciousness? or even higher brain function? and then we are able to use that to ascertain the level of brain activity prior to birth? Would that change the argument? What if we were able to demonstrate that the unborn can hear; distinguish the voices of their parents or siblings; develop a preference for rock vs. blues music; have an emotional response to voices raised in argument as opposed to the sound of a lullaby? Is that still just an amalgam of cells whose continued existence is absolutely dependent upon the whims of its mother? What if technology were to make the removal and transplantation of the fetus, at any stage of development, possible. If there were women waiting and eager to receive such a transplant, would reason still allow the conceiving mother the absolute right to terminate that [potential] life, for any reason or for no reason?

I do not see Objectivism as the rational version of the Ten Commandments, carved in stone and forever after complete, static, and unassailable. If even Ayn Rand could state that "one may argue", then I think that there must be room in the Gulch to make that argument, so long as the parties remain committed to reason and {gasp} civility.

Thank you.

you do not get to declare a person a slave to another.

This is the most terrifying conversation I have ever read on this site. Sorry to say but the most militant, angry, combative and attacking remarks are yours ewv. That amount of emotion is counterproductive to clear and rational discussion imho. Although I'm sure everyone will be looking forward to other conversations regarding how to decrease the surplus population and call it something other than a human.

It can't be done in one "swell foop". This is an intellectual "war", not the kind of war you are referring to. The intellectual war can only be won through understanding of better ideas, not demoralizing, which in this context is anti-intellectual. Many or most of the people you are referring to will not be convinced, and the worst will never be. That is one reason why it takes time.

In the meantime we can only rely on the extent to which people are rational, because the whole society has not been reduced to the level of literal savages and people do have some understanding. One of the weakest areas of understanding is the nature of reason and egoism, but to the extent people can understand it and are willing to stand up for their own lives they may fight the worst politically, at least long enough to be able to later make more fundamental improvements. That is what we rely on every time we do anything in politics.

Whether or not that is still possible overall is another question. I tend to doubt it without at least a much greater decline than we have suffered so far. The current shift in emphasis politically from the tea party movement towards religion as a priority is a very bad sign.

As I said previously, if that were the case, we would not be arguing. That is what abortion should mean, but the doctor's rights have been compromised as much as the baker's. In fact, that was an intended consequence of Zerocare.

True enough, but my point still stands. Lawyers and insurance companies will raise the rates on all of us precisely because of this government intrusion, further reducing the liberty of each of us.

You don't see the forest through the tree's,

cake batter has potential to be cake, in this I would agree. We're talking a human life. I'd have hoped I wouldn't need to say that.

If that is what you believe then you don't belong here, as your increasing militance and personal attacks illustrate. Both the right of abortion and its defense, which is not "faith" and "canonizing" -- are fundamental to Ayn Rand's philosophy. Only people have rights. People are not to be sacrificed to the unborn potential on behalf of faith in religious duties.

"Potential to survive" means before birth, with the potential to survive under abnormal, extraordinary circumstances to force a birth that has not happened. A potential has no rights. Religious barbarism against the rights of women are the evil.

The cost of birth control has nothing to do with the right of abortion.

This isn't about conventional slogans about being on someone else's "boat" as a substitute for reasons when promoting religious dogma. Her support for abortion is based on a moral philosophy of secular individualism in its identification of both the reasons for the right of abortion and the barbaric consequence of religious duties to deny it. Those who don't want to be on that "boat" are in the wrong forum. There are no intrinsic rights. Rights are objectively identified and validated as moral principles pertaining to conceptual beings, not mystically assigned to "life" in any form.